


Snared

by SouthronWildling



Series: On the King's Road [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-04-23 04:57:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19144015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthronWildling/pseuds/SouthronWildling
Summary: As they finally reach the Neck of the north, Jaime learns more about Bronn's past. Or his present, as the very least.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story/installment has given me no end of problems, but I've decided to stop playing with and just post it. Hope it satisfies. I love you all.

Two days after the turning for Greywater Watch, and it was harder and harder to find suitable campsites the further they went into Neck. The swamps were frozen and the ice was covered in snow, but the ice wasn't thick. It wasn't strong enough to support a man's weight, let alone a horse. So they broke through again and again, stumbling and cursing with wet boots that didn't completely keep out the water (despite the tallow they rubbed into the leather), whenever it was time to stop for the day as they struggled to find solid ground to pitch the tent.

"Fuck!" Bronn swore. Jaime turned to look at him, and he was pointing at a log that laid partially across the road. The log twisted sluggishly and turned to regard him with a yellow eye as it opened its mouth to expose large pointed teeth. It raised itself up off the ground with a slow push and made a small lurch towards them, but closed its eyes almost immediately as its body touched the ground again. They crossed their horses to the far side of the road and edged past it, but it barely moved at all.

"Lizard-lion. Usually they go beneath the water to wait out the winter. They can't handle cold; it makes them slow," Bronn said. Jaime simply nodded. He'd never seen one before, and the descriptions he'd heard hadn't done justice to the creatures. He didn't think he'd like to see another one in summer. It was too many teeth in too clever a disguise.

A few hours later, Bronn surprised him by turning east, off the Kingsroad onto what could only be discerned as a side-road by the absence of the trees that surrounded it. Jaime followed him, reins loose in his hand, eyes watchful. The trees on either side of the road were thick, the sky overcast. It was late afternoon but it had appeared on the verge of dusk all day.

"Is there a village? An inn?" he asked, hope flaring in his chest. It had been nearly two weeks since they'd seen any signs of civilization beyond crossroad signs; not since the inn at the crossroads. Each day their portions were smaller and each day he thought, maybe today I'll warm up. It never happened, and it was wearing him down. He wasn't certain he'd ever be warm again. The metal hand was stowed in his saddlebag now, since the metal held the chill and fed it into his very bones. He wore his sleeve cinched closed around his stump with a piece of twine, now. But Bronn shook his head.

"Remember Highgarden? Ya called me...," Bronn paused for dramatic effect. "Ser Bronn of whatever shitheap I came from?" He snorted and then spat into the snow on the lee side of the horse. "We're headed for the shitheap."

Jaime felt slightly ashamed. "I shouldn't have-," he started, but Bronn cut him off.

"No, it's a shitheap. You'll see soon enough."

It was, actually. When the trees thinned out to reveal the smattering of buildings, barns and cottages all nestled together in the snow, his hopes sank. It was as if some of the poorest areas of Fleabottom had been plucked into the sky by a giant and laid down here in this bit of solid ground surrounded by swamp. Half the structures that looked like they should house people rather than livestock appeared to be abandoned, with no smoke rising from the chimneys. Thatch had crumbled, leaving roofs covered in snow that gave way to gaping holes and leaning walls, windows and doorways that tilted like loose teeth. The ground underfoot was a cesspit of churned mud and manure and unidentifiable filth, all crusted over with a light glaze of ice.

Light could be seen behind the shuttered windows of the house Bronn walked his horse to, though, and smoke curled prettily from its chimney. He dismounted to tie his reins to a metal loop that had been driven into the corner of the building and so Jaime did the same. The door opened only a moment later, and a man stepped out with a knife in each hand. Jaime eyed him, a slightly shorter, brown-eyed version of Bronn.

"You'll come no closer, iffen ya want to keep body and soul together," the man said, but he jerked back a little as Bronn turned and threw back his hood.

"Gordon," Bronn said evenly. His voice was calm, but there was a tension in the air that set Jaime's teeth on edge, and he felt his right hand itch to pull steel. 'Ghost hands don't draw without reason,' he thought.

Gordon eyed him. "Bronn," he returned, but he still looked wary, and it was only one knife (the one in his left hand) that was returned to its sheath as he eyed them. "Thought you were still faffing about down south. This one of your pillow-biter friends?" His eyes raked Jaime up and down and focused on the cinched sleeve as Jaime moved to stand beside his friend. "No, only a Kingslayer. Nevermind." He turned and went back into the house.

Bronn followed him, giving Jaime a quick look and jerk of the head towards the door. He found himself closing the door against the cold and standing against the wall just to the left of it as Bronn moved closer to the center of the room, near a good-sized table. The far wall held a fireplace, the walls at each end bore a darkened doorway. In the far corner to Jaime's left, a toddler was being entertained by a girl of seven or eight years. She had a doll and was intermittently shushing the tot and making her doll give him kisses. Behind them was an older boy who giggled with the slack face of someone simple. In the near corner, a boy of perhaps twelve held four strands of cordage in his fingers as he twisted it into rope. His eyes bored into Jaime's with a sullen expression.

Standing at the hearth was an older girl - no, a woman, he amended, as she turned back to look at Bronn and them himself, eyes flicking between them before she fastened them onto Gordon with a questioning stare. She gave a quick nod at the man and then turned back to the pot over the fire, giving it another stir. Her hair was a frizzed mess of disarray and she had the short, slight build of the crannogmen. Her feet were bare.

"Alys," Bronn said with a nod, a hint of hesitancy in his voice.

"Stella," she rejoined with a quick shake of her head. She fixed her eyes on Bronn with a downturned mouth. "Alys had been dead these last five years." Her eyes met Jaime's only briefly before she turned away again and found something to interest her in the bench along the wall beside the fireplace, vegetables which she set to peeling and cutting up.

Gordon had seated himself at the table, straddling the bench he sat on and turning to Bronn with one arm laid much too casually on the table, knife in easy reach.

"What do you want, Bronn?" he asked.

"Food. Shelter for the night. Winter is here," Bronn said. He was still standing in the middle of the room, his posture alert. Jaime watched as he appeared to fidget, edging closer and then away, a dueler's sense tingling at watching how he tested the waters, how close he could come before the other man's defenses went up, how much did he relax when he stepped back again. Jaime held himself tense and ready beside the door.

"You'll have it," Gordon said. "But not here. You can try Karven's, across the way, or the next cottage over. They've sat empty this year. I've no room for ya."

"And food?," Bronn asked.

"Less food than room. Like ya said yourself, winter is here."

"I've silver for it."

"And what good will that silver do me? None are left surrounding Moat Cailin, and Greywater's nearly as deserted. Silver matters little when there's naught to buy."

"You can take them to White Harbor and go east, south. Winter is _here_ ," Bronn repeated emphatically. "The long night is coming once more."

"And leave all this?" Gordon replied, casting an arm out. "You don't have that much silver, in any case, and I have next to none. And there hasn't been a long night since our grandmother's grandmother was a babe, if then. PIss off."

Bronn shook his head, glanced over at Jaime, and then returned his gaze back to Gordon. "Will you see us off in the morning?" he asked.

"Aye, if ya like."

Bronn heaved a breath at that and moved towards Jaime, and they left the dank cottage and led the horses to a ramshackle barn across the lane. There was a little hay in the loft above and some oats in a bin, and they fed the horses and pumped water that was only slightly above freezing into a trough and left them after they had removed saddles and bridles and rubbed them down and replaced the blankets over their broad backs.

Bronn led him into a cottage; a small, one-room affair. It was short work to start a fire in the hearth and there was still firewood piled up against a corner. There were still some meagre foodstuffs in a corner; oats in a sack and a few preserved crocks of vegetables on a shelf. It was a sparse supper, but it was hot.

"Not exactly welcoming," Jaime ventured as they ate off the earthenware bowls.

Bronn shrugged. "Gordon and I survived our rearing. That doesn't make us friends."

A little later, there was a knock at the door. Bronn opened it to the little girl, now doll-less, and took the small package she handed him before she ran back off into the dark. He unwrapped it to reveal four potatoes and a hands-length of salted meat.

"Trust Stella, at least," he commented as he put the food into his pack.

"Oh?" Jaime asked. He had taken his boots off to set them by the hearth and was stretching his feet near the flames, feeling the numb flesh burn and tingle as warmth returned.

"Aye. She and Alys were twins. Not mirror-twins, but near enough it made no matter. They came from Greywater's Watch. Guest rights were important to them."

The night and exhaustion settled over them like a down coverlet as the cottage warmed with the fire. The bed, pushed into a corner and consisting of a dense strawtick, still had one woolen blanket covering it, and their furs made up the deficit. Nearly warm, and with a nearly full belly, Jaime curled against Bronn's back and finally slept.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurred to me, sometime between Caged and now: Ellaria Sand was locked in the Black Cells, chained across from her daughter's rotting corpse, being force-fed if she refused to eat or drink. It is entirely likely that she was still there, when the Red Keep was destroyed by dragonfire. Cersei was even more screwed up than Jaime realized.

Jaime had a large pot of water heating over the fire the next morning when Bronn came back in. He was tired of smelling like ... well, to be quite honest, he hadn't gone so long without a hot bath since being held captive by Robb Stark, and while he’d stayed cleaner on this trip and didn’t smell like that, he certainly didn't want to walk down memory lane to revisit that year and everything that came with it. He wasn't certain how he'd manage an actual tub bath, since no tub was in evidence in the cottage, but he thought he could at least make use of the hot water.

 

Bronn looked grim as he shut the door. "We're going to be here a few days, at least."

 

"Why? I thought you wanted to leave before noon?"

 

Bronn shook his head. "Your horse is favoring its forehoof. Not too much now, but she could be lame by nightfall if we ride out today. I did what I could, but we'll have to wait and see."

 

"Bronn, we need to be in Winterfell now."

 

"Ya think I don't know that?" Bronn's voice was sharp. "It's no use leaving when we'll just be slowed down later, two riders and only one horse. Give it a couple of days and we can go. It's four days to Castle Cerwyn on horse. Do you want to walk it and add six more? Gods!" He stripped his gloves and tossed them down onto the bed. Jaime watched him cross to the window, watched the set of his shoulders as he peered out. 

 

"We don't have four days worth of food to get to Cerwyn. Nor will we, if we stay here. Your brother made that quite plain last night." Jaime's voice was quiet.

 

"I know that." Bronn didn't turn around. "I knew you wouldn't be prepared for this trip. I knew it and I followed you anyway. I had to. We could reach White Harbor in less than two days with two good horses. We could go; there's ships leaving every day. Winters in Essos are like in Dorne; a little frost and maybe a quick snow that melts away soon after. No army of the dead. No Dragon Bitch raining fire down out of the skies. Just us, and a warm climate, and a future. There's no future if we go to Winterfell." 

 

_I knew it and I followed you anyway. I had to_. It echoed over and over in Jaime's mind. "Bronn," he started, but the sellsword turned around and looked at him, need written all over his face, and Jaime couldn't finish the sentence. 

 

"I wanted to hit him, when he called you a pillow-biter," Bronn said. "I learned a long time ago to hide this part of myself and not react to shit like that, but I wanted to hurt him because he tried to hurt you. I want to go somewhere people won't question it. We go to Winterfell, say, and win? And then Daenerys takes the throne, after? You think you won't be fodder for a political alliance? There'll be group weddings, linking the remaining houses, and I'll be over here: Ser Bronn of the Shitheap. You'll be Lord of Casterly Rock, with some pretty wife with a good name and an untouched twat.  And this," he waved his hand back and forth towards him and then away, "this will be so much ash in the wind. Like it never happened. Never mattered."

 

Jaime couldn't stand it. He crossed the floor in four strides and wrapped his arms around Bronn. "It will always matter. Tyrion can have the Rock. You think I want any of that? I don't," he said, but Bronn was already pulling away and Jaime was left with his arms empty. "Bronn, please-"

 

"No. I've loved you since Dorne. I won't watch you marry some girl, not even for honor. I can't."

 

"You think I have that much honor left?" he asked. "Stop it. Seriously, stop. I tried to explain it to Brienne once. All the vows we have to swear. And other vows that go unspoken. Uphold your house. Sure. Protect your king. Of course. Obey the orders that you are given by your superiors? Certainly. What else are you supposed to do?

 

"Do you think that was easy? When your king demands your father's head? When he plots the incineration of thousands of innocents, and you kill him and the pyromancers for it? Because, you're also tasked with protecting the weak.  And they call you Oathbreaker and Kingslayer for it. Every time I have ever acted for love or honor, it was judged as wrong. Some of it was," he said, as a young boy's face in a window came to mind. "But not all of it. They're hypocrites, and I don't care what they think. I won't let them judge me wrongly again."

 

Bronn's icy blue eyes seemed to strip him naked, stripped away all defenses and pretensions. "Do you really think you'll have a choice?"

 

'No choice,' he thought, but Bronn's lips were on his and he was being pushed backwards onto the bed, and his good hand was pulling Bronn's tunic over his head even as Bronn was unlacing his breeches and pulling his tunic up and the breeches down in quick, efficient tugs. There was no choice here, either, only a primal need, and his hand was undoing Bronn's lacings and he was using his toes to grip his breeches and pull them downwards, his instep pushing the crotch of the pants off his ankles, and they were a tangle of arms and legs and torsos pressed feverishly together. Bronn was over him, then, grinding his hips into his, and he could feel Bronn pressed hard and hot alongside his own stiffened length. 

 

When Bronn released his lips, Jaime pushed up against him once more, demanding he return. He stroked his hand down the man's back, his pressed his stump between his shoulderblades to hold him in place, and slid his hand across Bronn's lower back and then his buttocks, down to the backs of his upper thighs, raking fingernails across the sensitive skin there and feeling the hairs catch a little. He sucked his mouth against Bronn's throat, from his ear towards his collarbone, reveling in each sigh and moan.

 

Bronn lifted away for a moment and he mourned the loss of his weight on top of him. It was such an intimate thing; a loss of control, an acceptance of something he couldn't name.  When Bronn's weight came back, he pressed his lips once more into Jaime's shoulder and bit lightly, then sucked with a moving tongue until Bronn made a small noise and quivered against him.

 

Oiled fingers were pressing against him, and he could feel them, and he tensed a little as little sparks of _danger_ and _pain_ and _shame_ shot through his mind, but this was Bronn, and Bronn wouldn't hurt him. Bronn was kissing him again, and the fingers were moving, and they were slick and soft against his flesh like the tongue that was sliding against his, and the slickness was good and he felt himself relaxing almost against his will as the fingers moved and pressed and stroked and when one went a little ways in, he whimpered a little but didn't protest. He only kissed Bronn deeper, pushing his tongue against his and swirling a little, which was echoed below.  

 

"Don't," he said, but his legs were lifting around Bronn's sides, and the hand was moving again between his legs, sliding and stroking and pressing once more and _oh_ through a second bit of pain but it quickly faded into something else as he pressed against him and his cock jumped in response and he thrust his hips upwards.

 

"No?" Bronn breathed.

 

"Slow," he amended. There was a sliding sensation and then the press again and he couldn't think.

 

"Yes, like that," he breathed, and it happened again. And then once more, and he couldn't really think after that. 'Bronn?' 

 

He was being carried on a wave that was both pleasure and a little pain, but the pain was negligible and the pleasure was overwhelming. There was a moment when he was kissing Bronn, and a second finger slipped inside, and it was a little too much but it felt good and he melted into it even more and then nothing hurt at all. His legs were relaxing and drawing outwards and up. And then suddenly he was  fine with everything, the push and pull of it all and Bronn's weight comforting him from above, and then his fingers were gone and he could feel the head of Bronn's cock rubbing him up and down, from his ass to his stones, and Bronn's hand was around his cock but not really pulling and his other arm was pressed down near his head. He turned his face and kissed it.

 

When Bronn's cock first started to press against him, Jaime stiffened up. 

 

"I'll stop. We don't have to."

 

"No," he said. "A bit more oil? But I want to."

 

A little more oil was easily accommodated. Bronn pushed in just a little, kissing Jaime while he did. Jaime kissed back as Bronn pulled away and pressed in again, but then tore his lips away with a hiss as he broached the second ring.

 

"Give it a second," Bronn said, panting and holding very still above him, and Jaime looked up at him and saw nothing but want and concern and love and he felt the exact moment when his body relaxed and Bronn slid home.

 

This. _This_ was all he wanted, all he had ever wanted, yielding this kind of control and knowing he could yield it, that he was safe with the one who was taking over for him. This slow burn that didn't feel like immolation but was a heat that urged him onward, made him want to chase the sensation as he let his mind stop thinking and just feel it. Bronn was rocking into him, filling him up and pushing against whatever it was that made his cock feel almost like he was inside Bronn at the same time, and then his hand was grasping him and his lips and tongue were moving against his, and everything narrowed down into the sensations, the drawing, tightening, the anticipation, and it was right there and he peaked with his entire body singing out, long waves of pleasure that he felt deep within before his seed ever spilled and the second release had never felt so sweet.

 

Bronn rode him through it and then quickened his pace, with short hard strokes that had Jaime gasping. He heard Bronn's groan as he slipped away from his body, and then his spend was joining what was already pooled on his stomach and Bronn was falling onto his side and pulling him against his chest.

 

"I don't want a wife," Jaime said, still catching his breath. "We'll go into Winterfell as we are. Renly tried to hide it and people gossiped and talked behind his back. Oberyn didn't hide it and people shrugged and said, of course, and, he's from Dorne, and, that's just Oberyn. We won't hide, and they'll say what they will, but they won't force me to marry anyone."

 

"That simple, huh?" Bronn asked, skeptically. Jaime kissed him. 

 

"That simple. I'm sick of secrets."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A rather short chapter, but 4 and 5 will be longer. They are giving me fits of frustration. I had thought writing a sex scene was difficult, until I tried to write a fight scene. Ah well, we shall see.

Bronn bathed first, standing in a shallow metal pan that might have been intended for washing clothes (Jaime wasn't sure what its intended purpose was; there were quite a few implements in the cottage he didn't exactly recognize) and scrubbing the soap over himself methodically. Jaime laid in the bed, still naked and warm under the furs, and watched him, thinking. 'He said he loves me,' Jaime thought, 'but he doesn't know about the Stark boy. He doesn't know the other reason I'm worried about going to Winterfell. He said he loves me, and I...,' that line of thought dwindled to quiet in his head, the inner monologue silenced as flashes of memory, him and Cersei, shot through his mind.

_"Who will you say is the father?" he asked, and she had smiled with a 'Do you even need to ask?' expression. "You," she answered._

_"Does she like it gentle, or rough? A finger in the bum? Not now - shhh - we'll talk later," the slimy squid asked, and it was all he could do not to slam his golden hand into that smirking face. Cersei making it clear she would marry Euron, or at least dangle the carrot, and walking away from Jaime as if he was just expected to go along,_

'She did expect me to just go along with it, follow her back inside and probably stand guard at the door, as I did with Aerys and Rhaella. As I had with her and Robert, and Robert with his whores. Did she even care, what doing that cost me? She accused me of betraying her time and again, but she betrayed me far more,' he thought. 'Do I even know if it-' but he slammed that door shut in his mind, cutting off the idea before it could even be fully formed. Bronn was rinsing off and caught his eye, gave him that easy grin that made his blue eyes crinkle in the corners and the laugh lines in his cheeks deepen.

"Come back, Lannister. Ya've wandered into the Shadowlands," Bronn said. He stepped over the lip of the shallow tub and began drying himself off. "Give me a minute to get dressed and I'll dump this out and you can have your wash-up." Jaime nodded at him, sitting up and resting his elbows against his knees. But when Bronn had dumped the water from tub out the front door and brought it back to set it in the warmth near the fireplace, Jaime didn't get up.

"Come here, Bronn," and he sounded unsure, even to his own ears. He rested his forehead against his arms where they were folded across his knees when Bronn looked at him, and a moment later he felt the shift of the mattress as Bronn sat down near him.

"Second thoughts, already?" Bronn's voice was quiet, a little disappointed.

"No!" he said, but he didn't raise his head. He felt like he was being torn apart. "No, never that. But you said you loved me, and I-"

"I do love you. S'alright if ya can't say it back. I pushed too much, too soon."

"Bronn. Do you know anything of the Stark boy, the crippled one?"

"Fell out of a tree or sommat, aye? Then was nearly stabbed, which Lady Stark blamed on Tyrion. Then was killed when the Ironborn took Winterfell?"

"Yes, but it wasn't a tree he fell out of. He fell from a tower in Winterfell. One he'd been climbing. He was quite the little climber." He lifted his head then and met Bronn's eyes. Bronn was watching him, that becoming-familiar expression of concern on his face, and Jaime felt the guilt and shame welling up in his chest like a geyser, the only crime he'd committed that he felt true remorse for but could do nothing about was about to spill from his lips and he didn't deserve Bronn's love and he knew it, and he knew this would change things.

"Cersei and I were in the tower when he climbed it, and he saw us. I hauled him in to perch on the windowsill like a raven. He was ten years old, and Cersei kept saying, 'He saw us,' and I looked at her, and I knew that he couldn't live to tell what he had seen, and I shoved him backwards out the window. 'The things I do for love,' I said, then. I don't know what I feel for you, Bronn; it's too big and too confusing and too encompassing to put a name on it. But I don't deserve your love, and my own love is poisonous."

Bronn's eyes stared into his and he watched the sellsword take a deep breath and let it out. It seemed an age before his thin lips quirked into what could never be called a smile, but made Jaime feel somewhat relieved, all the same.

"Tyrion once asked me a question. He asked if I was told to kill an infant girl, would I do it without question. I told him no. Not without question. I'd ask how much." He paused a moment, letting Jaime absorb his full meaning before he shrugged. "I've done horrible things, Jaime. Never killed a child, but if the price was right, I can't say I wouldn't have. And I would have done it for coin. That's a lot less noble than love, however misguided. And he didn't die by your hand, anyhow." The kiss he pressed against Jaime's temple was dry, but no less caring for it. "G'wan and get washed up. I need to see if Gordon can either slaughter a pig, or else we need to hunt to make up the food stores, both for the village and for us. 


	4. Chapter 4

Jaime was drying off, having availed himself of soap and the hot water, when he heard the shouts and jeers.

It took him a few minutes to get dressed, and when he finally made it outside, there was something of a crowd gathered in the lane between the small cottage he and Bronn had slept in and Gordon's home across the way. He could see eight men strung out in small groups, six women hovering around. Four boys, including Gordon's son, were grouped together, and three young girls were off to the side, holding hands, Gordon's daughter in the middle. They all formed a ring, and in the center were Bronn and his brother. Jaime moved forward, left hand on his sword hilt as he approached and watched as Bronn feinted one way and then did a somersault under an arm wielding a dagger. 'No!' he thought, and he started to charge forward.

A small hand against his forearm stopped him.

"Just watch."

Stella's chin barely reached above his elbow in height. She looked up at him, dark eyes dancing with excitement, hair escaping the knot she'd created at the back of her head. Frizzed tendrils sprang forth around her skull like a halo of confused bracken.

"Watch. They haven't sparred in years," she said.

"They're using edged blades. That's not sparring," he thought, and too late realized he'd said aloud, but his eyes were drawn back and he didn't intervene.

Gordon had a dagger in each hand. Bronn had his sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. He watched as they circled each other, Gordon with one dagger held at eye-height and the other at his hip, Bronn with his sword out and dagger held at shoulder-height. Bronn tested first, striking out and meeting with two daggers that crossed and blocked before the shorter man dodged and lunged, and was repelled by Bronn's own knife, deflecting it away. They resumed circling.

Gordon struck first on the next round, knives flashing as he pressed inward but Bronn deflected the blades and Gordon somersaulted across the frozen ground and wound up a few feet out of reach. He laughed, and Bronn grinned.

"Do you know how the crannogmen fight?"

It took Jaime a moment to pull his attention away from the combat before him to the voice at his elbow. The little woman by his shoulder was a distraction he could have done without, and he wanted nothing to distract him from Bronn. But she was talking, and she was his sister by law of sorts, so he listened.

"No," he answered. "I know they poison their blades, is all. Are his knives?"

"No, they aren't. This is just brother to brother. They won't kill each other."

"Are you certain?"

Bronn attacked with his sword and drove his brother back, knives flashing but doing little more than deflect the sword they were glancing off, pressing him backwards toward the ring of people standing as witness. Suddenly an arm shot up and while the sword was coming down, his knife was aimed directly at Bronn's neck, and while the sellsword brought his own knife up in defense, it wasn't fast enough. Bronn backed off, grinning, and Gordon laughed.

"You're getting old," Gordon said, mockingly.

"I'm barely older than you. Come on, then."

The two daggers flashed, and Bronn moved once more to deflect them. Jaime denied the impulse to stop the duel and turned to the petite woman at his elbow. "Why are they even doing this?" he asked. Bronn had pressed a flurry of strikes and pushed Gordon backwards into the circle, and it almost appeared he had him pinned down before the shorter man shoved him away.

Bronn let out a short cry and flipped himself over, coming to rest on his feet after flipping backwards.

"Who's old? C'mon then, old man!"

Jaime felt himself being drug downwards, the small hand on his arm forcing him to lower his ear. "Because," she said, and if her voice was a little bit enticing, he could only blame the forbidden, and the scent of lavendar and rosemary and sex that wafted up from her person, the hot little puffs of breath that spoke into his ear. He didn't actually want her, but he couldn't deny the raw sexuality she exuded as she whispered to him and pressed her body close to his. She was like Cersei in a way, albeit shorter.

"If Bronn wins, they slaughter a hog. If Gordon, then they hunt. They trained together at Greywater's Watch, and they're close to evenly matched, do you see?"

He did see. Bronn's brother matched him in skill, and they were still sparring, fighting, a matched event if he'd ever seen one. Tests were parried, lunges deflected, bodies struggling in a dance as old as time, but not as old as the dance that it awoke in him. 'He moves like a cat,' Jaime thought, 'the way his crouches and attacks.' But they weren't done, and he fought himself enough to not embarrass himself on this village street, hard over a duel.

It was an age before Bronn finally landed on his back with Gordon's dagger against his throat, Gordon's thighs and arms pinning him down, and Jaime snarled and took two steps forward, feeling the small hand that tried to stop him but couldn't. He stopped only because of how quickly Gordon got up. Bronn found his feet. They made eye contact across the muddy, snowy, fetid village lane, and Bronn's eyes were wild and then were on his, and he wrapped his arms around Bronn's waist and drew the shorter man into him and kissed him with a fervor he'd never anticipated. 'Don't leave me,' he thought, and he kissed him and darted his tongue to slide between his lips and hoped his message would be received.

Bronn pulled away and laughed and the rest of the villagers drew away as well, some laughing and others silent. Jaime let him go, embarrassed at the public display that he couldn't have helped, and watched Bronn sheathe the sword and dagger and preen a little in the wintery sunlight. "A hunt, we'll hunt and conquer together!" he cried, and a few of the men cheered and others were silent, and Jaime felt uncomfortable in the exposed audience of the village..

"Don't worry. By the time we've brought down a deer or three, they'll have forgotten," Bronn said, pulling his head downwards. Jaime felt both buoyed up by those words and also still uncomfortable, and he wasn't sure what to do, but Bronn pushed him back towards the cottage, and he went inside with the taste of Bronn on his lips and the promise of the future.


	5. Chapter 5

Hours later, Bronn opened the door to the cottage and stamped his feet hard before taking off his boots and padding into the cottage barefoot, shutting the door so that the fire in the fireplace would stop sputtering. The wintery light coming through the windows was fading into shadow, the cottage room softening into shades of grey that turned golden and brown around the hearth.

  
"Four deer. I took two. We'll have enough to see us to Winterfell and some left over, and the village will profit from the rest," Bronn said as he shucked out of his cloak and overtunic. "Is there hot water? I could do with a wash; field-dressing a deer is bloody work."

There was hot water. Jaime had set some to heat earlier, when the light first began to fade, and Bronn washed and then they strung some cuts of fresh meat on a metal skewer and set it near the flames to roast. Bronn told him the rest had been taken away to be properly butchered and preserved. 

They found themselves sitting sprawled on the floor of the cottage before the hearth, wiping away the grease and feeling pleasantly warm and full. Jaime had to add uncertain to the list of adjectives, but Bronn was stretching out his legs before the fire rather like a cat, and his curls were just barely touching his shoulders, and he was pointing his crooked nose up towards the ceiling, and it was all just a little too much.

"Bronn?"

"Hmm?" he said with a sigh, rolling his head to look at Jaime. Wintery blue eyes met his, a face relaxed and open, and Jaime knew he was lost.

"I wanted...," Jaime didn't quite know how to finish that sentence, but Bronn just sat up with a quick indrawn breath and took his shirt off.

"Bed," Bronn said. 

'Cersei would never have allowed this,' he thought, as he stared down at Bronn's naked body in the bed beside him and ran the fingers of true hand up Bronn's side. 'She didn't want things soft.' But the feelings welling up in Jaime weren't the fast, hard, driving, forced compulsion to acquire. He wanted Bronn to feel it, to feel what he was feeling. So he ran his fingers up Bronn's side, feeling the play of muscle on muscle and then the ribs above them, the fine bones of his collarbones and shoulder under his hands, the way his arms twitched and trembled as he stroked down Bronn's arm and kissed against his wrist, the crook of his elbow, the soft bit just inside his shoulder. He stroked back down Bronn's side and felt him thrum under his fingers, holding back his reactions, waiting to see what Jaime would do. 

Jaime pressed his mouth against Bronn's skin and sucked tiny bruises into him. One at the outside of his pectoral muscle, one an inch from Bronn's navel. Another into the smooth skin just inside Bronn's hip, where he remembered he'd been marked, before. Bronn's shuddering breath at that was a reward he hadn't expected. He kissed and stroked his way down Bronn's thighs and calves and paid special attention to the sinews around his ankles before making his way back up again. Bronn had less hair on his legs than he did, and he explored the difference with his hand and mouth, nipping the skin around his knees where there was an unexpected bare patch. 

When he found Bronn's stones, he paid them no less attention. Soft hair met his tongue, and textured skin, and he pulled one and then the other into his mouth, sucking gently and moving his mouth against them, willing Bronn to understand. To feel. Bronn was laid out on the bed, barely moving at all, soft gasps escaping his lips at times but mostly quiet, and he wanted him to teach him what worked best, but he wasn't giving any instruction, wasn't making any noise.

Jaime dragged his tongue up Bronn's length, and Bronn pulled himself almost upright with a gasp.

"Like that?" he asked. He repeated the maneuver on the other side of the thick cock, sliding his tongue over the head with a little swirl.

Bronn just gasped again, nodded, and laid back down. His fingers drifted down into Jaime's short hair, and Jaime had just a momentary thought of what that would have felt like if his hair was still long before his mouth encircled Bronn and took him in.

There were long, slow moments of movement and the slick slide of skin, and when he finally drew himself off and back up again, seeking the press of a hard chest against his lips, they were so sensitive that even the barest graze of a puckered nipple against his mouth felt like lightning. Lips finally met his again, and the long, slow slide of tongue against his was a benediction; he ground his hips against Bronn's and felt them sliding together and a hand had grasped them both, and he was kissing Bronn for all that he was worth, carried up on a wave of pleasure and acceptance so profound that he couldn't think. It was rising and driving him forward, and he loved and yes, love, yes, do that, just like that, and it was filling him up and spilling over and he couldn't stop it and never wanted to stop it and it was the best the thing in the world and every inch of his skin seemed to be touching Bronn's and it was amazing and close and yes, please, like that, and OH--

Jaime slept rather well that night. Bronn did, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Like it? Hate it? Seriously, voice your opinions and let me know what I've done right and what I've done wrong. I'm not psychic; I can't know unless you tell me!


End file.
